Voodoo F-Class F510
From: Voodoo PC, http://www.voodoopc.com/
Estimated price: varies by configuration
Configurations:
F-Class F510 3.0 Bavaria Blue Custom.
With: WesternDigital ATA/100 hard drive, plus onboard RAID controllers.
Price: $5,995
F-Class F510 i875-3000.
With: Dual 120 GB Serial ATA RAID config.
Price: $6,295

Calgary's Voodoo PC specializes in high-end custom PCs for very demanding users, those looking to squeeze every possible ounce of performance out of their machines. Though that often means hardcore game players, Voodoo fans exist across the spectrum, and all of them will find something to like in the newest configurations in the F-Class series.

We've already looked at a PC in this line last fall--in fact, we gave it our VIP award--but the newest version available under that name makes use of Intel's Canterwood technology, which boosts the system bus up to 800 MHz and allows the new 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor to be teamed up with DDR 400 memory. It uses the new 875-chipset board from Intel, which also adds two built-in Serial ATA controllers.

Of course, all of the components included in the system are top notch, including the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card and Creative Audigy 2 audio card. On the optical side, the system comes with both a DVD-ROM and a CD-RW drive, but it also features a front-facing multi-card reader for digital camera/MP3-style removable media (which handles SecureDigital and MultiMedia Card, CompactFlash type II, microdrive, SmartMedia, and MemoryStick). The system has six USB 2.0 ports and one FireWire port (located on the Audigy card).

We looked at two versions of the F-Class F510 system. The first made use of the Intel board's built-in Serial ATA controller, using two 120 GB Seagate SATA drives set up in a RAID configuration. The second featured a single 200 GB ATA/100 hard drive from Western Digital. Though we weren't fully able to benchmark the Serial ATA drive (see benchmarking notes), both configurations offered excellent performance.

As with past Voodoo machines, this one looks fantastic. The machine comes with a custom paint job, in colours the purchaser can select. Also, the new Voodoo Tattoo option allows users to upload a graphic, which Voodoo will paint onto the system case. The side of the case has a clear panel that allows you to see inside, and a fluorescent light illuminates all of the components. We continue to be impressed with Voodoo's ultra-clean cabling job, with all of the cables and wires tucked away out of sight--this not only makes the system look very cool, it actually keeps it cooler by facilitating airflow. Because of this, the F-Class only requires two case-mounted cooling fans.

One nice feature in these systems is what Voodoo calls "upgrade assurance"--if you want to upgrade your system down the road, Voodoo will pay for the shipping for three years, giving you wholesale pricing on the upgrade parts and charging one hour of labour for upgrade work performed. (That work includes rebuilding the PC from scratch, re-imaging the drives, recabling, updating of BIOS and firmware as necessary, etc.) Certainly you're paying extra for this feature, but if you're the kind of person who loves to upgrade whenever the hottest and newest thing arrives, it may be worth the investment.

We did several benchmark runs on the machine that came with the single ATA/100 drive. Sandra Professional 2002 tested the machine's ability to crunch numbers and the memory bandwidth. FutureMark's PC Mark 2002 (http://www.futuremark.com/) tested three separate hardware subsystems: CPU, memory, and hard drive. Lastly, BAPCo's SysMark 2002 (http://www.bapco.com/) tested overall system performance while running a series of popular applications. In all cases, testing was done independently in the TCP labs and the benchmark software vendors make no representations as to our results.

PC Mark 2002